Should You Quit Your Day Job to Blog?

I am a firm advocate of blogging. I am also living proof that you can make a living writing on the Internet. Beyond this, I believe that there are many untapped markets and opportunities just waiting for the right person when it comes to blogging.

Do I believe that you should quit your day job to blog? Nope. At least, not to start with. Why? There are at least four good reasons why you shouldn't quit your day job to blog:

1. Blogging takes time to go from startup into a reliable source of revenue. Generally speaking, a blog will take at least six months before it begins to show any sort of a profit. In many cases, a blog may not make a dime in its first year. Quitting your day job means jumping into a business that won't pay off for a very long time.

2. Blogging success isn't guaranteed. Some niches, for example, won't make much money. Other niches, such as the Internet writing niche, can be profitable. I discovered this with a hobby blog about Dungeons and Dragons that I created. After six months, I'd zero in revenue. I kept the D&D blog as a hobby, but started up my Internet writing blog, which has been tremendously successful. If I had not had some other sources of income when I was only doing the D&D blog, however, I'd have been in big trouble.

3. Day jobs provide better benefits than blogging. Chances are you get sick time, vacation time, paid holidays and health insurance with your day job. Blogging doesn't provide you with any of that. To be able to quit your day job to blog, you've got to have a steady enough source of income already so that you can still pay your mortgage if you get a cold.

4. Blogging is a single area that, while profitable now, may not be forever. If you quit your day job, you'd better have a more diverse source of income than just blogging. It may be that you've got a product to sell on your blog; if blogging ever goes away, you can still sell the product through whatever medium replaces blogging. You might diversify your efforts, and write web content as well as blog. Whatever you do, you've got to see your blogging career as a small business that offers many services. Once your blog is providing a steady stream of reliable income, you might start to consider quitting your day job to blog, but not until then.